Archive for the ‘Other Music’ Category

Happy Halloween! Get your twisted party going with my Haunted House of Halloween Twist-a-Rama! mixes, a total of 58 tracks, the first and second installments will give you more than two hours’ worth of novelty from the 1950s and 60s.

This year I unfortunately didn’t have the time to cull together a third installment on account of me promoting the hell out of Videogram‘s Camp Blood, but next year I hope I can have a fresh batch of silliness for you all to enjoy.

Like this:

Hey, Sunday! For some odd reason starting this post had me thinking of the Simpsons‘ Sunday, Cruddy, Sunday episode, which has nothing to do with either football or my state of mind – ’cause quite frankly I am having a blast right now – but that’s the way the creative mind works I guess. And the Trio track was just something that seemed fun.

So, October seems to be the month where lots of things are happening. I am keeping quite busy finishing up three different physical releases for Videogram plus a digital Halloween-themed one, so you wanna talk about flooding the market, ha ha ha. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed there’ll be a demand for it because I am working like crazy and hate to see that amount of time, energy and effort going to waste.

One thing that won’t happen though is the Haunted House of Horror mixes I’ve posted on Mixcloud for these past two years. There just isn’t any time for it and since I usually wanna spend a couple of months culling the tracks and work on in-between songs FX I figured I’d pass on it this year. But part one and two are still online so I’m sure I’ll spam the crap out of it re-post both of them later on. And as an added bonus you can finally embed the web players on WordPress!

Also, I received an email earlier this week from Austrian director John Brito. Seems like the first episode of Shadows of Prey is ready to premiere (don’t have a set date, though). I’ve already seen it and think it turned out really good. More episodes are in the works and I’ll start culling together the tracks I created for the series and release them digitally as an EP as soon as possible. Maybe in …October.

Head on over to SoundCloud and check out Death Waltz Recording Company‘s all-new horror mix Electronic Phantasmagoria. Roughly an hour’s length, this mix is a collection of “commercially unavailable electronic soundtrack music from the 60s and 70s.”

Culled from various VHS (?) sources, this is a great collection of lesser-known tracks, ripped from low-budget, sleazy horror films, so expect hiss, crackle, sound drop outs, distortion, abrupt editing and freaky dialogue – just perfect!

Speaking of SoundCloud, I just uploaded Regina dei Cannibali End Titles to Videogram‘s official page. Check it out.

Check out Australian musician Jamie Coghill (aka The Jimmy C‘s) interview with Hammond Chamberlin over at Beyond the Playlist. Pretty in-depth (and twice as long as my own) they cover how he got into music, his creativity and work for The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West. You’ll find it here.

While on the subject, Jamie recently signed with Foghorn Media, re-releasing his The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West Original Web Series Soundtrack album as a seven-track EP. Check it out on iTuneshere.

Help me! Help me! Well, here’s some pretty exciting news: Scientists in Holland (or do they prefer to call it the Netherlands?) announced this past week that they have indeed transported atoms three metres with 100% accuracy. Yup, Star Trek fans salivate, teleportation is now a reality.

The professor in charge of this successful experiment – one Hanson, from Delft University of Technology – stated that “nothing in the laws of physics fundamentally forbids the teleportation of large objects, including humans”, even though that is to be considered pretty unlikely at this point. But he would not rule it out “because there’s no fundamental law of physics preventing it”.

Pretty damn cool news for all sci-fi fans, but didn’t this guy Francois Delambre work on this back in the 1950s? Whatever happened to him? I think David Cronenberg did a movie based on the guy’s research…

Finally a chance to quote The Simpsons! Hey, Marge, remember when we used to make out to this hymn? Via El Diabolik‘s brilliant podcast I was hepped toBappi Lahiri‘s Bollywood outing Everybody Dance With Me that sounds a lot like Iron Butterfly‘s 17-minute stoner classic In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida. Add some Troggs‘ Wild Thing for the chorus and you’re there!

If you already gave the brilliant Dawn of the Synth compilations a spin, (part two is my personal fave), you might wanna check out El Diabolik’s World of Psychotronic Soundtracks as they offer great collections of soundtrack music, exotica/lounge cheese, 1980s synth/new wave and whatnot – always giving you an interesting mix with trivia and facts delivered in a nice, conversational way. I’ve added their page to my links so feel free to check that one out. Got the time to give I Ron Butterfly a spin?

I recently did a live interview with Beyond the Playlist (online in June!) and feel kinda lame as I completely forgot to plug this artist while I had the chance: Giallos Flame! The pseudonym for UK-based (?) multi-instrumentalist Ron Graham, this project is my personal fave when it comes to modern, horror OST-influenced music ’cause his works is second to none. Not only influenced by the Italian-produced exploitation fare of the 1970s and 80s, his works have the sound and feel down so cold that they easily could be mistaken for the real thing. Those lesser morally inclined could probably get away with putting his vinyl records in dusty, pre-worn sleeves and sell to the uninitiated on eBay for impressive sums and none of them would be the wiser.

Now, Ron seems to be quite the reserved, private guy as he’s been active for more than a decade, but I’d be damned if I could find any additional information or interviews online – an interesting experience as it both frustrates you and reinvigorates your inner nerd (actually, giving it a raging hard-on would be a more proper phrase) as it has you clawing for those scraps of knowledge picked up here and there, furiously assembling them in order to complete the picture. It’s almost like a throwback to the pre-internet late 1980s when horror movies could be rare, uncensored edition usually meant “third generation copy” and information about said titles surfaced once every second year in fanzines that took 6 to 8 weeks to arrive in your mail box. If this is a thought-out marketing strategy I gotta hand it to whoever’s behind it for pulling off the intriguing-mystery-artist image in an age where everybody has an online presence, especially musicians that have a tendency to promote every fart, burp and chord produced during the day. All joking aside, like The Active Listener stated last year his obscurity is puzzling.

He’s done some movie work, composing musical scores for low-budget horrors such as Murder-Set-Pieces and Black Devil Doll, and his discography includes several albums and EPs – all on independent labels. Recently signing to Rotary Tower – both a record label and music library meaning you can license his works for media use – there are two new releases in the plans, Archivio Giallo volumes 1 and 2, collecting over two dozens of rare and unreleased tracks into one hour-long retro experience. Both can be streamed in full on SoundCloud (links below) and I also took the time to create a playlist on YouTube, culling together all the tracks I could find. Check him out!

“Sugar doesn’t come close, We’re making it with maltose…” Well, as I just had an impromptu Skype chat with Nik and The Goat of Exploited Cinema – both brethren fans of The Ramones – I was hepped to the band’s 1995 Steel Reserve beer commercials (that might’ve coincided with Frank Kozik doing some artwork for said business).

Three tracks in total and it was pretty funny giving them a spin. Check ’em out, make sure to check out Exploited Cinema’s official site here and on Facebookand while on the subject of Los Hermanos Ramone and beer:

Forming the band with his brothers Jeff and Bruce, the band was considered one of the first hardcore outfits in the US, at least on the West Coast as The Bad Brains were active in the Washington, D.C./New York area at the same time. Their Out of Vogue EP was released on Joke Records in 1978 and is considered a pioneering record – fetching some impressive sums on eBay.

The band reunited in 2010, and even though he was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer in January that same year, Mike kept gigging with the band until the very end. Rest in peace.

Here’s a quickie song byte I discovered via the UK show Project Moonbase: Joe Davolaz! A fellow Swedish sextet that really got the retro exotica sound down cold. Their track Piña Colada emulated the vibe so perfectly it had me convinced it’d fit perfectly in a mid-60s genre movie – maybe even a French one as there is a slight ye-ye influence to be heard.